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Elogio de la bicileta, by Marc Augé

Today, Sunday, the weather is great; sunny, but not too hot. That’s a great day for going out, and I’m pretty sure that the runners of the London Marathon will love it. I’m not the running type since I’m out of breath after only a few meters. I am more fan of the bicycle (as I already told in a previous post). It gives you the opportunity to move fast, do exercise and enjoy the landscape without spending much money and without contaminating the environment.

But to admire what a bike can provide you, this book is really good. The tittle says it all “Elogio de la bicicleta” (Praise for the bicycle). Sadly the book is not translated into English, but you can read it either in Spanish (Gedisa Editorial), Italian (Bollati Bolinghieri Editore) and French (Rivages Poche) -surprisingly in the three languages of the main bike Tours.

It is divided in three main sections: “El mito vivido” (the lived myth), “La crisis” (the crisis) and “La utopia” (the utopia). Marc Augé, an antropologist, speaks about is memories of the Tour the Fance, about the current situation of using bikes in the big cities, including the different rental systems, and presents also an utopic world, whithout any cars in the city centres. The bike and its possibilities are the topic of this book, and for those who love biking is a very encouraging book (also for those who love biking, but are afraid of riding it on the big cities*).

Hope you enjoy the book and meet you on the streets on your bike.

* There are things that we can do to improve the security of riding bikes on the cities, like joining the Critical Mass (in London, the last Friday of every month, from the South Bank, under Waterloo Bridge at 6pm) or campaigning in groups like the London Cycling Campaign and their campaign Space for Cycling